Sunday, March 18, 2012

Squaring the circle

One more from Cole Blaq's fun Enter the Brick series: Circling the Square. This name refers to the old challenge of squaring the circle. The challenge was to use a compass (the kind you use to draw circles, not the kind you use to find your way in a forest) and a straight edge to draw a square with the same area as a given circle. The 1882 proof that this is impossible was also very important for number theory, as it helped show the transcendental irrational nature of pi.